18. No Escape #2
He felt the weight of leaving Seeyr down below to her fate again.
At least when they had left Eyros, they were leaving him safe and sound back in Destiny.
They wouldn’t see him and Elgar find their fate thankfully, but it all hit him then.
They were in the maelstrom. What they did next was supposedly fixed or might be fixed or had to be fixed.
He hoped it was, because wanted them to survive.
“Now who are you who speaks with such ill knowledge?” the child Vampire asked as she stared up at Fiona.
Fiona’s eyes narrowed and a flinty expression crossed her face as he hand tightened on Charlie’s forearm. “The one getting us out of here.”
And they teleported.
Charlie hated teleporting. It always felt like his stomach followed after the rest of his body arrived.
Which, of course, caused his gorge to rise.
But this time he was darn-right thrilled to feel that familiar nausea.
Only to realize that Fiona had only managed to teleport them to the end of the hallway.
Both of them looked over their shoulders at the crowd that was turning towards them.
“Time to run!” Fiona cried as she took off, dragging him and the dead Tanis behind her.
They were out of the dungeon’s hallway and into the main floor of the Spire.
And they no longer looked as they had. He was no longer Tanis, but an elder male Vampire with golden skin and creases around his silver eyes.
Tanis now looked like a rolled up carpet.
Fiona had changed into a short, squat Vampire with a red curly beard.
More of the Order Vampires were all around them and, with his guidance, they melded into the crowd, as they headed towards the doors.
Unlike the Order Vampires that were in the hallway itself, they seemed to not know exactly what was going on, but they were alarmed.
Charlie saw plenty of people whispering rapidly to one another and looking around.
Of course, when the slip of a girl Vampire raced out of the hallway, one arm thrust out as if to accuse someone of witchcraft, the whispering became raised voices.
“Where are they?! The ones that left here? We need to find them!” the girl Vampire cried.
He and Fiona kept walking, making their way as quickly and directly to the doors as possible, but they were having to keep within a group. Breaking off from one to go to the doors would draw attention.
“There was a red-haired Vampire and another carrying a carpet that just came out,” one of the Order Vampires, a man with sandy hair, said as he scanned the crowd.
But good luck finding that odd couple as Charlie had already changed their appearances.
He was now over six feet tall and built like a bodybuilder.
Tanis now appeared to be a small box that was carried in both hands.
Fiona was now clean shaven with a voluptuous form barely contained in a leather Order dress.
Fiona looked down at her large chest and gave him a pointed look.
“It was the farthest thing I could think of from what I'd made you before,” he hissed in explanation.
She shook her head, but a faint smile played on her face.
“I don’t know if we’re getting out the front doors. We need another route,” he whispered out of the side of his mouth as they both moved to the edge of the circular room where all the Order Vampires seemed to be clustering.
The child Vampire–whose name was Bianca if he’d overheard another call her right–stormed over to the dozen of guards there and demanded to know who had come through in the five minutes since they’d quit the hallway.
“You’re right. Let’s sidle over there. If I can get us to a quieter place, I should be able to, at least, teleport us outside into the rose garden,” Fiona whispered.
He gave a nod and the two of them threaded through the crowd, making appropriately concerned noises about how “enemies” could have breached the sanctity of the Spire!
He followed Fiona’s lead as she spoke various greetings to the other Order members that sounded like nonsense to him, but were the traditional way to greet other members.
“Touch the center of your head with two fingers together of your right hand,” she instructed, “when you meet anyone of higher rank.”
“How do I know if they’re of higher rank?” he asked.
“They have red jewels on the collar of their outfits,” she said.
“ShouId I give us some of those?” he asked.
But she shook her head. “No, that will lead to a whole other mess of things. Besides, most people would know those with the red jewels. We’re not native here. Or I’m assuming we’re not.”
Her eyes slid to him and he shook his head.
“Don’t want to take the risk of someone coming up to us as their long lost cousin or something. Let alone their Childe or Master. These are people from far in the future who I met,” he assured her.
“Good plan,” she agreed, putting two fingers to her head and lowering her chin as they met another person with red stones on their collar.
Many eyes drifted to her magnificent bosom. One of the male Vampires approached with a simpering smile on his lips even as his eyes were not on her face.
“I dare say that you ought to stay close to me, my dear.” He touched the center of his chest. “With dangerous enemies afoot, I could take care of you.”
Charlie half expected Fiona to grip the man by the throat and throttle him before tossing his lifeless body over her shoulder. But instead, she smiled back, her eyes going coquettish and her head dipping.
“So kind, but my Master calls and I cannot stay,” she told him, her fingers trailing up his arm. “But another time?”
“Oh, yes, yes, indeed!” The Order Vampire flashed her a wolfish look, which she appeared to welcome, but Charlie knew she was contemplating plucking out his eyeballs and making him eat them.
Then they were walking past while he was gazing after them.
The Order Vampire called out, “Wait, I don’t know your name! ”
But they had already passed out of his eyeshot.
Out of the corner of her mouth, she said, “Charlie, I really need to be less conspicuous.”
He had already shifted them both to two very nondescript lower Order members swathed in thick, covering robes. They’d made it to a hallway just as Bianca’s voice rose up behind them.
“Can you scent them? You did get a good whiff, didn’t you, Thaddeus?” Bianca asked.
She was speaking to a whip-thin young man with brown hair and a fox-like face. “I have.”
His head was turning slowly as he scented the air.
“Weryn Vampire,” he hissed.
Fiona nodded. They had their backs to the hallway they wanted to go down now. They backed into it slowly, acting as if they were not moving at all. Thaddeus’ head was swinging towards their location as he lifted his nose in the air.
“We need to go, Fifi,” he whispered.
“Yep, time to go,” Fiona said as she turned on her heel and started to move down the hallway.
Just as he turned, he heard Thaddeus shout, “That way! Their scent comes from that direction!”